No Time To Be Scared At Pearl Harbor

December 08, 1985|by JENNIFER RITENOUR, The Morning Call

Forty-four years ago yesterday Warren Peters, 64, of Catasauqua was rudely awakened by excessive noise. "We were just waking up," he said. "I remember that something was making a lot of racket for a Sunday morning."

At that time, Peters was a locomotive engineer in the coast artillery of the Army. He was stationed "right at the opening of Pearl Harbor.

"At first we thought it was just maneuvers, but then we saw the planes and big clouds of smoke, and we all knew they were not our planes."

The bombs came close, but Peters said he didn't have time to worry about being scared because there was so much work to do. "We weren't really prepared to fight back. Most of the ammunition was locked up. We were caught by surprise."

In charge of large, 16-inch guns, Peters' outfit had to transport the ammunition to the guns to prepare in case the Japanese were coming back with ships.

Because of the guns in its possession, his outfit would have been a target had the Japanese attacked by ship. "But they were after the boats, and they got them," Peters said.

Peters and his outfit were lucky. They escaped casualties, but even so Peters said the bombing "seemed like it went on all day. We were jumpy and scared into the night."

Peters said that later that evening, when U.S. planes flew overhead and dropped flares to see where they were, "everyone prepared for action."

Today, he looks upon the bombing matter-of-factly. "I have no ill feelings about it," he said. "It was one of those things that happened."

Last summer, Peters returned to Pearl Harbor to find many changes. "Everything was gone . . . our barracks were gone. It was all foreign."